


Off Color Day

by uselessplayback



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-02
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-15 11:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uselessplayback/pseuds/uselessplayback
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles plays hooky.  It's just one of those days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Off Color Day

It isn’t the weather, overcast and grey and just that little bit too cold. It doesn’t even have anything to do with how tired Stiles is, how isolated he feels—or maybe it’s all of these things, but maybe it’s just that when Stiles looks up at the peel away calendar on his desk and sees what day it is, he can’t be in the house anymore. So he leaves.

He could walk into town, but he doesn’t. Thinks about getting in the car and just driving but there’s nowhere to go and, anyway, it’s not like he can get away from whatever it is he thinks he’s feeling, especially when he doesn’t know. It’s just there, a pressing weight at the back of his mind, cluttered with all of his other issues, the ones he knows. So, he ignores the anxiety he feels when he thinks about the classes he’s missing, the possible ramifications. Someone’s probably going to call his dad but Stiles just wants . . . something and he knows he’s not going to find it at school or anywhere else.

He stops in at the coffee shop on Maymont and spends a few minutes eyeing the menu board with a weird sense of disconnection but winds up ordering the same thing he always does, lets Jake rib him for it and can’t even work up the energy to rib Jake back.

“You okay, man?” Jake asks, completely out of character. Jake is generally stoic about anyone’s problems but his own. Stiles didn’t even know he had it in him to register empathy.

“Just tired,” Stiles says, fumbling to put a sleeve on his coffee cup. It takes a couple of tries but he manages. “Playing hooky, too. I think it’s one of those days.”

“But not a ‘Day,’ right?” Jake asks. 

Stiles manages a laugh, “No, I think I’d have to be screaming at someone because they put the cheese on my sandwich wrong for it to be a Day.”

Jake shrugs, hair shifting forward over his face. “Day’s still young, man. It could happen.”

\--

Stiles drives over to the cemetery next, doesn’t really know why. His mom died in April and it’s September but he parks himself in the dirt by her headstone and drinks his coffee, staring up at the sky. The clouds are dark and thickening but still not ominous enough for rain. Looking at them does nothing for his mood. It may as well be an outward manifestation of his confusion and the nagging itch for something he can’t put a name to.

He gets up after a while and pats his mother’s gravestone but doesn’t say anything.

There are no messages on his phone when he checks but he hadn’t been expecting any. Maybe last year—but things aren’t the same and Scott had never been good with dates even then and last year had been pretty awful too, come to think of it.

He drives past the movie theatre, not really registering it at first, and then has to turn around and double back because—why not?

He realizes the impulse may have been a mistake when he checks the show times. There’s nothing he really wants to see but there isn’t anything that screams “oh god, don’t even” either, and Stiles is tapping on the window to wake the ticket clerk from his doze on the counter before he can change his mind.

Stiles negotiates his ticket awkwardly, having no idea what he wants and walks into the lobby with no idea what movie he’s going to see. He supposes it doesn’t matter, really, because he’ll probably wind up watching it on late night TV years from now with half the scenes cut out to make way for commercials and to appease the prudish nature of American television networks. The only real drawback is that he won’t be able to change the channel. 

The theatre is in some serious need of mold remediation and it’s sticky-warm inside, the walls and even the floor painted a flat, charming black, so when Stiles spots Derek Hale squinting down at his own ticket, he’s not even surprised. Derek seems to like to stick to the dank underbelly of society, so why not a run-down movie theatre? Then again, Stiles didn’t even know Derek watched movies.

Stiles thinks about leaving but apparently he doesn’t do it fast enough because Derek’s head jerks up and he’s glowering at Stiles. And then there’s nothing for it but to acknowledge that Derek’s there.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” Derek asks. Stiles shrugs, plucks at his ticket, and leaves it at that. He can feel Derek looking at him, but he’s really not in the mood to talk. 

Derek sighs. “Come on,” he says and walks off toward the concession stand, clearly expecting Stiles to follow. Stiles stares after him because Derek must be crazy wanting to eat anything from here but then Derek is turning around and giving Stiles the eyebrow.

“Well?” Derek asks impatiently. “Do you want anything?”

Apparently, Stiles does.

\--

The movie turns out to be some kind of depressing revenge thriller where everyone winds up dead or extremely unhappy. Not that any of the characters were happy to begin with, Stiles thinks and looks over at Derek who appears to be taking it all in with his trademark angry intensity. 

They’re alone in the theatre but Derek hasn’t said two words to Stiles since they sat down which is fine by Stiles, but Derek also hadn’t bothered to find any of dozens of seats further away either. He’d followed Stiles in and piled into the seat next to him and then stared at the screen. Stiles can’t tell if Derek is affected at all by the film’s gloom, violence or the clunky, overbearing message. 

Maybe Derek is just here for the kind of isolation you only find in an empty theatre.

Derek hogs most of the popcorn, too, which is funny because Stiles is pretty sure he’s never seen Derek eat. He’d been running on the assumption that Derek feasted on the blood of his enemies. Instead, Derek’s drinking a red Icee and Stiles is distracted by the way it’s stained Derek’s mouth and tongue.

Stiles probably should have left when he’d had the chance, but he’s also perversely glad that Derek’s here because now Stiles is less focused on the nagging, wanting something that’s been bothering him all day. It’s just Stiles, a tub of insanely salty popcorn and Derek glowering at the projector screen, no responsibilities or expectations, no school. At least, not for a while longer.

Derek’s shoving a handful of popcorn into his mouth when he catches Stiles staring.

“What?” Derek snaps, apparently unconcerned that he’s gotten more popcorn on himself than in his mouth.

Stiles opens his mouth to say something silly but what comes out is, “It’s my birthday.”

Derek blinks and slowly lowers his hand. “I’m sorry,” he says and he even looks sorry. He looks so sorry that Stiles finds himself laughing.

“You know that’s not how people normally respond, right?” Stiles asks, still laughing. “Although, in this case I kind of have to agree with you.” He runs a hand over his head. “I just—I saw what day it was and I just had to get out, you know?”

And that doesn’t even come close but Stiles, for once, doesn't know how to explain the way he feels.

“Yeah,” Derek says quietly.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, relieved.

Stiles turns back to the screen and tries to focus on the shapes moving in front of him but it’s hard because Derek is still watching him. Then Derek shifts and, when Stiles glances over again, Derek is staring fixedly at the screen.

“You know,” Stiles says after a while, “the protagonist is an idiot.”

Derek snorts. “Yeah, he really is.”


End file.
